Does GPSR Apply to B2B Sales?

The test is use, not the buyer

'product' means any item, whether or not it is interconnected to other items, supplied or made available, whether for consideration or not, including in the context of providing a service, which is intended for consumers or is likely, under reasonably foreseeable conditions, to be used by consumers even if not intended for them.

This definition does not ask who bought the product. It asks whether the product is intended for consumers, or is the kind of thing that could reasonably be used by a consumer even if it was never marketed to one. Article 3(2) ties the definition of a safe product to the same idea, the health and safety of consumers.

Why a B2B label rarely changes anything

Most goods an Amazon or wholesale private label seller moves, kitchenware, textiles, tools, accessories, electronics, are exactly the kind of thing a consumer could end up using regardless of who placed the order. Selling a pallet of them to a retailer instead of a single unit to a shopper doesn't change what the product is.

The narrow genuine carve-out

A product with no reasonably foreseeable consumer use, specialised industrial machinery sold only to businesses that operate it, sits outside GPSR's practical target. This is a narrow case, and it is unlikely to apply to most private label consumer goods sold through Amazon, eBay, Etsy or a Shopify store.

Where this actually matters for private label sellers

The B2B question comes up most often for sellers who also run a wholesale or reseller channel alongside their consumer-facing listings. If the same product also appears, or could reasonably appear, on a shelf a consumer buys from, it is not exempt just because one sales channel is B2B.

A worked example: kitchenware sold to a hotel chain

Suppose a private label seller supplies insulated stainless steel bottles in bulk to a hotel chain for guest rooms, invoiced business to business, no consumer ever appears in the sales contract. The bottle itself does not change. It is still an item a hotel guest, who is a consumer, will pick up, use, fill and drink from exactly as if they had bought it themselves on Amazon. Under Article 3(1), that reasonably foreseeable consumer use is what puts the product in scope, regardless of the fact the invoice went to a corporate buyer. The same manufacturer obligations under Article 9, and the same Article 19 disclosure if the item is also offered for sale online, apply to this bulk order exactly as they would to a single retail sale.

What doesn't change under a B2B contract

• The manufacturer's Article 9 obligations, technical documentation, batch or serial marking, instructions and warnings, attach to the product itself, not to the sales channel it moves through.
• If the product is also offered anywhere online in a way that counts as a distance sale to consumers, the Article 19 disclosure requirement applies to that listing regardless of whether other units of the same product move through a B2B channel.
• A wholesale order size, quantity discounts and payment terms have no bearing on whether the product itself is the kind of thing a consumer could reasonably use.

The one place the B2B/B2C line does matter: distance selling

Article 19's distance-sale disclosure duty and Article 4's definition of when an online offer counts as "made available on the market" in the EU both key off targeting consumers.

An offer for sale shall be considered to be targeted at consumers in the Union if the relevant economic operator directs, by any means, its activities to one or more Member States.

A listing on a platform that genuinely only reaches other registered businesses, and is not directed at consumers, sits in a different position for the Article 19 distance-sale disclosure specifically than a listing on Amazon or Etsy, which plainly are directed at consumers. This distinction is narrow and does not touch the underlying Article 9 manufacturer duties, which attach to the product itself under Article 3(1) regardless of which channel sells it. A product with reasonably foreseeable consumer use still needs its technical documentation, its batch marking and its instructions, whether or not any single sale happens through a listing that itself counts as targeting consumers.

The safest default for a seller running both channels

If the same SKU, or a materially similar version of it, is sold anywhere a consumer could buy it, whether that's your own Amazon storefront, an Etsy shop, or a Shopify site, treat the product as in scope everywhere it's sold, including the B2B channel. The underlying manufacturer duties under Article 9 attach to the product, not to any one sale, so maintaining them consistently is simpler than trying to track which specific shipment needs which level of compliance. Running two separate compliance standards for what is functionally the same product, a stripped-down version for the wholesale contract and a full version for the retail listing, creates exactly the kind of gap a market surveillance authority would flag first, since the physical product a consumer eventually holds does not know or care which channel it arrived through.